KAMSACK — Garrett Keyowski says that the end of November and into December is his favourite time of the year.
“Everyone is getting ready for Christmas, people are in good moods, the harvest is over and the winter is arriving,” Keyowski said. “It’s a nice time of the year.
“There is the smell of Christmas baking in the homes I visit,” he said, explaining that he enjoys the scenery located in the eight rural municipalities for which he works as the Pest Control Officer (PCO). “This is a special time of year.”
“Working in this job, I have come to realize how beautiful this area is and how fortunate we are to be living in this part of the world.”
Twenty-five years ago, as an 18-year-old raised on a farm near Hamton, located about 13 miles south of Canora, Keyowski watched his buddies go off to work in the Alberta oil patches. Rather than join them, he accepted advice from his father Ed, a councillor at the RM of Sliding Hills, who knew that Fred Predinchuk of Swan Plain was about to retire as the Sliding Hills PCO.
“I am a Grade 12 graduate of the 1998-99 class,” Keyowski said in a letter to the RM council. “I am interested to fill in the pest control officer position for the RM.”
He said he had passed the PCO rat control exam and has applied for his license. He was hired.
“As an 18-year-old, I thought I would solve the problem of rats, but it took me years to realize that it is unsolvable,” he said. “Basically, because complete eradication is unachievable, all we can do is keep them at bay. We live in an area of the world where there is always a habitat for rats.”
Keyowski said that when he began the job, discussing rats was almost a taboo subject. It was an embarrassing topic for farmers and he had to dig deep to determine if a farm had a rat problem. There was little trust to allow him into a farmer’s yard.
“’ Rats? Don’t let my neighbour know,’ was a common sentiment,” he said. “I was seen as a pesky door-to-door salesman.
“But that has evolved. Now, ‘thank God you’re here’ is the welcome I receive. Rats are open for discussion. People will do anything to get rid of rats. They’re no longer ashamed to admit they may have rats on their property.
“Through my visits, my job helps keep people on their toes.”
Keyowski and his wife, Brie-Anne, a care aid in the Yorkton District Nursing Home, are the parents of two children: Jevon, 14, and Layla, 11. He works a 2,800-acre grain farm near Hamton with his parents, Ed and Deb, whose yard is connected with his.
At the beginning of 2000, he began working as the Sliding Hills PCO, and says that Predinchuk was almost like a mentor. The next year, he was hired as the PCO at the RM of Cote, and then at St. Philips in 2002, and Livingston in 2003. Since then, he has agreed to work as the PCO at the RMs of Clayton, Wallace, Calder and Orkney.
He has also worked at the RM of Saltcoats for seven years and the RM of Preeceville for two years.
“I say that my territory is from Willowbrook to Wroxton to Whitebeech and everything in between.”
“In this area, there are 1,475 yard sites that I visit annually,” he said, explaining that the rural municipalities pay him according to provincial guidelines of the Rat Control Program operated by the Saskatchewan Government in co-operation with SARM (Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities).
The Rat Control Program pays up to 50 per cent of the RM’s cost if guidelines are followed, he said, adding that yard inspections and personal connections are how he does his job for safe rat control. He provides poison, traps, bait stations and expertise.
Most RMs in the province have a licensed PCO, and although not mandatory, they will have one if they want to take advantage of government funding, he said.
Norway rats and feral pigs are two of only five species, and the only animals, that have been legislated as “pests,” he said. They are seen as public enemy number one.
Rat populations, like many other species, fluctuate; in some years they’re almost non-existent, to other years when there are many.
“It goes in waves,” he said, explaining that in addition to his work, rats are often kept at bay by natural predators and in this area, the top predators of rats are owls, hawks, weasels and snakes.
To do his work, Keyowski obtains and retains a service license and an applicator's license and must re-write exams every five years in order to keep current, rather than attending yearly conventions, meetings and other public sessions for which one receives credit.
“I prefer testing. That keeps one in shape,” he said, adding that rather than attending such things as conventions, he’d rather be on the road doing his job.
Along with farming, Keyowski makes time in the spring and the fall to do his pest control work. In spring, he begins making his visits to farms when the snow starts melting and the graders begin to open the back roads, and will continue for about four or five weeks until late April or early May. He continues again in the fall after the combine is parked and he usually works until the middle of December.
But he is on call 365 days a year, so if he receives a call regarding a rat, he says he is prepared to drop what he is doing as soon as he can to attend to the call.
“That’s what I’m here for. Fighting rats takes precedence over everything else.”
What does he look for?
“On fresh snowfall around granaries, you can see signs immediately,” he said. “When you see black soil on top of white snow around buildings, that’s a real giveaway. Rats travelling on snow leave dirty trails.”
During harsh winters, rat activity is limited, he said. Norway Rats do not flourish in tough conditions, like extreme cold, lack of fresh food or lack of water. They don’t hibernate, but in the right home, they live well.
Rats are still disease carriers and are economically devastating, he said.
Where do rats flourish, he is asked. “Silage piles,” he immediately replies. “Silage is warm if tarped and there’s plenty of food. They are ideal for rats. Also, they enjoy unchecked heated buildings with an undisturbed food source, like flat-bottom bins.
Keyowski says that indeed his work includes mice.
“What’s good for rats is good for mice,” he said of the rat poison he distributes, which does not affect other animals that might feed on the rats and mice killed by the poison.
He uses single-dose anticoagulants and contrasts that with many compounds sold in stores as rat bait, which is often corn cob cellulose that fills up a rat’s stomach. If the rat’s diet was only that, it would eventually die of malnutrition, he said. But when the rat consumes things in addition to the bait, those compounds are of little value.
Regarding any initiative to re-allow strychnine as a control for gophers, Keyowski said “that will never happen” because it might be used for things for which it was not designed.
No two pest control officers’ methods are 100 per cent the same, he said. All studied the same, but their methods vary and in his case, he believes residents and landowners should be in control of their own establishments.
“I’m here to educate and facilitate all they need to do to safely eradicate rats. Once they understand how to do that, they become comfortable and it becomes their responsibility.
“I’m here to check in, provide supplies, answer questions and carry out inspections.
“If one has to look for rats, they don’t have a problem,” he said. “They are obvious.”
Keyowski said that when he began the job, he was using physical paper maps and writing up his inspections on paper. Now he uses the GPS (global positioning system), digital mapping, a truck-mounted laptop and spreadsheets.
“Technology helps a lot, as well as GPS trackers in remote areas. I also use a headset to make calls to plan my next move while on the road. That all increases productivity.”
Fewer farms mean fewer locations for potential infestation, but as operations get larger, stuff may go unchecked, he said. An operator on a large farm might not be too concerned about a small spillage of grain, whereas a small farmer would make sure to scoop up such spillages, thereby destroying a good food source for rats.
Doing this job over 25 years, Keyowski said he has gotten to know grandparents and their grandkids.
“I’ve seen families come and go and yard sites built and demolished. I get to know people, but the downside is occasionally losing them.
“I’ve got lots of good friends that I wouldn’t have known without this job.
“As a farmer, travelling and talking of the weather, the economy, the state of agriculture, world events and of course pests, it gives me a rounded picture of our corner of the world and through that, I realize we all have battles and struggles. Strange things happen to people every day, like flat tires, dead batteries, lost pets and sewer pump failures. These things don’t just happen to me.
“I meet a diverse cross-section of opinions from all walks of life.
“My biggest takeaway from this whole experience is all the people I’ve come to know as family that I would otherwise never had the chance to meet.
“On the occasional day, heading out onto the road, I might have a heavy heart or had been dealing with a problem, but by the end of the day, after having talked with people, I tend to feel much better. It’s a job that’s good therapy.
“I honestly believe we are living in a final frontier,” he said. “It is the safest, the furthest-reaching part of the country that many don’t see, but many do and we are proud to be here. This area is still relatively untouched by the fast-paced technological world.
“It’s beautiful, protected and isolated. It’s the last place that remains untouched.”
